Tie a Yellow Ribbon
by OnceUponASomeday
Summary: A little trip into the past...
1. Chapter 1

**Just playing with something a little less angsty... We know nothing much about who Deacon was before he became a hot flannel-shirt wearer, so a little filling in of some blanks...**

One of the windows on Deacon's truck had been cracked as long as Rayna had known him. Their roadtrips were accompanied by a backing track of whistling wind, louder the faster they drove. Sometimes they whistled along, creating their own little winding tune that grew increasingly elaborate until one of them dissolved into laughter, followed a second later by the other. The crack was on Rayna's side, and when it rained, cold droplets squeezed their way through it and landed on her arm, snaking down her skin and making her shiver. She'd flick drops over at Deacon, chuckling at the momentary surprise on his face before he'd reach for her knee and lean over to her, swiping at her neck with his wet tongue in revenge. Long straight roads at the edge of nowhere afforded a lot of playing. 'As long as you keep one hand on the wheel, you can do whatever you like with the other,' she'd tell him, and he found a lot of ways to take her up on it.

They'd been on one such long straight road for a couple of sweat-slicked hours, the vinyl of the front seat hot under Rayna's bare legs. Deacon had taken off his shoes and the peddles pressed into the soles of his feet, one arm propped out of the open window. They were headed to the ranch he'd grown up on, not so much out of choice as on request.

_'Deacon, your poppa and I have been discussin' and we'd very much like you to get your be-hind right on home,'_ his mother's voice had announced through his answer phone one morning._ 'Seems there's some talk goin' round about our very own son carryin' on with a country singer, no less.'_ It wasn't a conversation he wanted to have with them, and he'd hovered over the delete button, calculating how long he could get away with pretending he hadn't picked up her message before she sent the National Guard out to drag him by his earlobe. It wasn't what she'd said next so much as the crack in her voice, almost undetectable, that had halted his finger. _'We miss you son. Jimmy's been seein' to the chickens, got a good lot of eggs this summer. We make your favourite omelette every Sunday.'_

Deacon had discovered, upon apprehensively calling her back two days later, that it had been his father who had seen the pictures. He'd been buying slug pellets - 'pesky little brutes' - in Bill Perry's grocery store when he'd caught sight of his son's face on the cover of a glossy magazine. 'You haven't heard?' Bill had said, leaning across the counter on one dry elbow. 'That's the girl who sings that catchy song's been playin' all over the radio. Your boy's the talk o' the town. Course y'all don't go near town short of a 'mergency so you wouldn't know, 'spose.' They'd been at a party the label had thrown for their first number one, at a honky tonk in Nashville they'd hired out for the night. Rayna was a little wobbly on her feet, one hand clutching Deacon's arm, the other wrapped around a glass of bubbles. Deacon's face was soft, looking down at her like she was the most perfect thing he'd ever seen, which of course she was. Jack Claybourne had regretted flicking to the somewhat more telling and less permissible photographs inside. 'Boy done good for himself,' Bill had thrown in with a wink, nodding his head towards one of Deacon kissing her in what they'd thought was a secluded corner outside the bar a considerable amount of liquor later that night.

Their relationship wasn't public, so the pictures had irked Rayna when they'd come out. Deacon didn't care who knew, not yet famous enough to understand why he would one day put a whole lot of stock into privacy. At that time, it meant nothing to him - he wanted to kiss her in the middle of the street and he didn't give a damn who saw, he was a lucky fuck and so be it if everyone knew it. Rayna's manager hadn't exactly agreed. She'd only been working with Bucky Dawes for a few months, and she liked him a lot - he got her, where she wanted her career to go. He realised early on that Deacon was her Achilles' heel. They weren't seeing each other - technically - at the time she'd fired her manager and got an early morning call from Watty White, who had heard word of Bucky around town and thought she should meet with him. She'd hired him the same day, and had called Deacon to come down to the bar where they were discussing his contract. Bucky had felt the tremor the second he'd walked up to their booth and slid in beside Rayna. He'd heard, of course, about their chemistry, their partnership was becoming big news on the circuit, but he hadn't yet seen them play and he hadn't quite prepared himself for the electricity that shot between them even as they sat in a half empty bar lifting their glasses in a toast to him. Watty had recommended him for a reason - Bucky was a savvy man, and he knew what people wanted. The first time he did see Rayna and Deacon play was later that week, and he'd been entranced, by the two of them, but even more so by the reaction from the small audience, who had hung on every word, besotted with the way they looked at each other. He'd studied that look over the months, had felt the change in them, the intensity that cranked up when he knew they'd given into the temptation they posed to each other, though he was too respectful to note it. Bucky knew that grainy paparazzi shots of her guitar player's hands sliding up under the hem of her dress would generate more publicity than if they played a hundred promo gigs, and the morning they landed on his desk in an unassuming manila envelope, he talked Rayna calmly round, and watched their record sales skyrocket. What he also knew was that the thrill of the chase was a powerful tool. 'At this stage of your career, people thinking you might be together will sell more than people knowing you are,' had been his take on it, his way of handling their growing popularity with care. Bucky was nothing if not careful. There was little, however, that he could do about the fire they were playing with.

And so Deacon found himself loading overnight bags into his truck, the city sprawl in his rear view mirror and Rayna beside him, his mother's voice ringing in his ears telling him she was slow-cooking a stew for dinner and would he ask Rayna if she liked turnips? When he'd nervously broached the subject of paying a visit to his childhood home, something his face told her he was less than keen on, she'd thought it might just be a blessing in disguise - there could be a worse time to get out of Nashville for a few days. The press had been following them far more than usual, hoping to catch another incriminating exchange, something Bucky had warned them not to let happen. 'Not so much as a look,' he'd said, and Rayna had felt like they were being given detention for getting caught making out behind the bike sheds.

She was also curious. Deacon Claybourne was an incredible guitar player, was as soulful and stubborn as he was insatiable, and she'd spent the better part of the two years she'd known him thinking she'd got him figured out, only for him to prove her utterly wrong. She was discovering pieces of him every day, and the chance to see where he grew up, to meet his family, was too enticing to pass up on.

'What if they don't like me?' she asked, and he laughed.

'Baby,_ I_ like you one hell of a lot, so it doesn't matter what they think,' he said, averting his eyes to look out of the windscreen ahead. 'Of either of us.'

She studied his profile, the set of his jaw. 'How long has it been since you saw your parents Deacon?' she asked quietly.

It took him a moment to reply, and when he told her 'a while,' she didn't press him. He didn't speak of them much, and Rayna of all people knew to leave well alone. She felt the knot in her stomach tighten, and lifted her feet up onto the dash, crossing them at the ankles and leaning back. Deacon wasn't subtle in the way he raked his eyes up her legs, and she shook her head. 'You're a pervert Claybourne,' she said with a devilish smile.

'Wait 'til you meet my cousin Ronnie.'

He pulled off the road suddenly, steering them into the forecourt of a gas station that looked like no one had been near it in twenty years. 'What are you doing? We still have three quarters of a tank,' Rayna said, confused, and he leaned over and unbuckled her seatbelt, lingering by her ear.

'You can't go around lookin' like that and expect a guy to be able to concentrate on driving,' he said, his fingers stroking the back of her knee and making her shudder. 'And my folks aren't really free love kind of people, I'm gonna need to help you bank a couple o' good ones so you don't ravage me in the middle of the sheep pen.' He took her hand and pulled her out of the cab and towards the dubious bathroom around the back, the sole attendant not so much as looking up from his newspaper when they ran past in a clatter of boots and laughter, or when they stumbled back to the truck half an hour later with flushed faces and half-buttoned shirts.

Alice Claybourne had never intended to marry the carpenter's son. He'd been a year above her in school, in all the bands and all the bars, his name scrawled in black ink on all the girls' notebooks. Alice wasn't like those girls. She kept to herself at the bonfires down by the lake, had never smoked cigarettes in the convenience store parking lot. She went to church on Sundays, wore white dresses in the summertime. But Alice was beautiful, and she had absolutely no idea, which made Jack fall and fall hard. The girls that threw themselves at him were pretty girls, that was for sure, but hell did they know it. It got old after the twentieth hair-flick, the hours spent being grilled by their fathers while he sat in paisley armchairs waiting for them to apply unnecessary coats of lipstick. Alice listened to the words he sang instead of swooning over the fact he could hold a guitar, looked into his eyes and felt every last one of them. He hadn't meant to get her pregnant at seventeen, that had been a mishap he'd have paid for dearly if her daddy had been a better shot with a rifle. The Claybournes were good and proper people - with a few exceptions, but cousin Bobby had said he was sorry for burning the neighbour's barn down and Aunt Mary had been to confession three times a week since she'd cheated on her husband with the butcher - and Jack had married her before she'd even gone up a dress size. They'd never had a plan, but if they had, it wouldn't have included Jack drinking one of his kidneys onto its death bed, and they'd probably have left out the fight he got into that had landed him a week in a cell, still none the wiser over who had picked up the last rack of ribs first. There was a lot more they would have left out too, a lot Alice would never speak of in polite conversation, but the love they had for one another was something they could never have done without. It was hard to say whether they would have chosen it, if the choice had ever been theirs to make, but love didn't work that way. Love tied you to a person even when you should run for the hills and never look back.

Rayna hadn't expected the blonde in the sundress who ran down the porch steps towards them. The smile on her face was as joyful as it was sad when she threw her arms around Deacon, and she closed her eyes while she held him in her embrace. 'Hey momma,' he said, and Rayna was certain she'd never heard his voice sound quite that way. She cupped his face with thin fingers and looked at him as though reacquainting herself, before she turned to Rayna in apology and took both of her hands in her own. 'It is a delight to meet you,' she said, in a wispy voice Rayna fell instantly in love with. 'Our boy's been keeping you something of a secret.' On first glance she looked young, too young to be someone's mother, but every one of the lines around her eyes told a story, and there was something in the way she wrapped her arms around herself against the wind that had started up, teasing the creaky swing that dangled from an old oak tree in front of the house.

Deacon's father didn't come down to meet them. He stood on the porch until they reached him, and it was Rayna he greeted first. He looked a lot like Deacon, she thought, trying not to stare. He had the same troubled eyes that she suspected could turn mischievous at any moment, heavier stubble and longer hair, and the wind-kissed skin of someone who worked the land. He pecked her chastely on the cheek and she almost blushed at the gesture, smiling up at him when he introduced himself with all the charm of a good country gentlemen, and she was right - his face crinkled into a smile that probably had a lot to do with why Alice had married him. He shook Deacon's hand and nodded at him, his wordless way of saying he was glad his son was home, that he was happy to see him, and Rayna watched, wondering if there had ever been a goodbye.

If there was one thing Jack Claybourne knew, it was dangerous love. When his son turned and reached for the hand of the girl with the red hair who looked for all the world like she would follow him anywhere, leading her into the house he'd loved and lost his wife in, he felt his heart sink.


	2. Chapter 2

**Yeah when I said 'less angst', I lied. I'm in mourning over 'Is she gonna die?' and Deacon's fetching prison-orange get up in that promo - doesn't Rayna rock a tube in her mouth well though? …If anyone wants to jump off a bridge with me I'll see you September 25th.**

**Cheese warning ahead for use of song lyrics - full credit to those of you that manage to pull THAT off, I will never be doing it again. It felt a little necessary though so screw it, and the song is gorgeous and by The Civil Wars = the only excuse needed.**

The house hadn't changed in the three years since Deacon had last walked through its door. It smelled the same, he noticed, as he put their bags down by the counter that separated the kitchen and the patched up couches he used to sit on with his father, plucking on their old guitars until their fingers were numb. It smelled of log fires, of the tomato bread his mother made on summer mornings, of the wood his grandfather had carved into a sturdy dining table and rocking horses for him and his sister. They were still there, in the corner of the room just where they'd always been, and he tried not to remember all the hours they'd spent as kids pretending they were racing in the Derby.

'We've made the bed up for you in Deacon's old room Rayna,' Alice said, and Deacon knew it was less for the sake of the cross on the wall than for the want to stop history repeating itself. Rayna was eighteen, far wiser than her years and far more shrewd than his mother had ever been, a career that no matter how absorbed she was in Deacon she was fierce about, but the streak in her that was like a wild animal burned brilliantly and he knew his mother saw the recklessness just beneath her surface. Alice may have been a country girl, but she'd acquired a certain grit thanks to an absent mother and a wayward husband, and something told Deacon she could sense the complexities he was still a lifetime from unravelling in Rayna. He almost laughed at his parents' attempt to keep them a respectable distance apart under their roof, but he twisted it instead into a smile he aimed at Rayna as they followed his mother down the hall.

His room looked as though he could have slept in it the night before, the faded curtains pulled back, the records that hadn't fit in the solitary bag he'd packed to see him through his first months in Nashville still in the messy pile where he'd left them. The wave of nostalgia hit him hard, and his hand found the small of Rayna's back to steady himself; she moved imperceptibly closer to him when she recognised what he tried to keep from crossing his face.

'You could turn this into a study or something now,' he said, dropping her bag next to the bed.

'Whatever you think we'd use a study for Deac?' his father asked, walking into the room behind them.

'Well maybe a music room,' he offered instead, and Alice clasped her hands in front of her.

'We're just not ready to accept our youngest is never comin' home,' she said, trying not to sound as sad as voicing it out loud made her feel. 'Where is it you're from Rayna?'

'I'm from Nashville, ma'am, born and bred. That's where my daddy's family have always lived.' She looked around the room, away from their gaze. 'My mama though, she was from Alabama.'

Alice had read something in the newspaper - the one she picked up when she was waiting for Bill Perry to ring up the perishables but never bought - about Rayna's family, the mother who had died a few years ago in a car accident. The story had run next to an especially intrusive photograph of Rayna outside a recording studio looking pensively down at her hands, with a caption about her ongoing grief. 'Was your mama a singer too?'

Rayna nodded, smiling for a moment, before Deacon took her hand and suggested they put on some tea.

#

There were fewer nights, in the beginning. When Alice lay counting the kicks of a baby she knew was going to turn their lives upside down, Jack was there beside her, rubbing her back until she fell asleep. After their daughter was born, there was no panic when she woke to find him gone, only relief that she didn't have to drag herself from her bed, the sound of him singing softly to the tiny girl he rocked in the corner of the room soothing the both of them. They were too young, back then, to have any idea how bad they were for each other, to have seen what lay ahead for them in the wreckage of such heady love. He laid with the other women, he told her, because he could never be good enough for her, would never be what she deserved. His failures were set up a long time ago and who was he to think he could do anything but live up to them? She hated him for it, would walk through the grocery store trying not to look at the women loading tins into baskets so she wouldn't have to wonder which of them had had him. He never told her who they were, his mistresses - not that they could be called that, really, when he gave them but a few fleeting hours in the middle of a drunken night and never went back to them a second time - but she heard rumours around town that she tried to forget so she could look him in the eyes without turning them a nasty shade of black. Alice Claybourne was nothing if not dignified, something her father had taught her to be. But she was no pushover, and she knew every one of Jack's buttons, how to dig the knife into his chest and leave it there while she made dinner and smiled sweetly at him across the bread basket.

#

'My parents have lived in this house their whole married lives, they were kids when they moved in here,' Deacon said, sitting close to Rayna on one of the couches. His mother sat on the other, Jack perched on the arm.

'We were stupid kids,' Jack said gruffly, nodding his head towards his wife. 'We hadn't even finished high school, good Lord what we thought we were doin'.'

'We were makin' the best of things is what we were doin',' Alice said, and the clouds on Jack's face cleared when he looked over at her, just for a moment. 'This was a barn, more or less, in those days. Not a lot in the way of furnishin' to speak of.'

'I've spent my life paintin' it ever since,' Jack added, 'still haven't finished, as Ali reminds me every second Sunday.'

'You haven't sheared those sheep outdoors yet either Jack Claybourne.'

'Maybe Rayna can help me later,' he said, flashing her a wink. She wrapped her hands round the cup of steaming tea Alice had poured for her from a teapot that had seen better days and smiled back at him. There was something magnetic about Deacon's parents, something she couldn't pull her eyes away from.

'Ray'd probably end up shearin' _you_ by way of an accident, Pops,' Deacon said, smirking into his own tea when she slapped him on the arm.

'Now you can stop that talk right now,' Alice told them, standing up. 'Miss Rayna will not be gettin' those pretty hands muddy and awful out in that field. Don't you pay attention to these boys buttercup, they're terrors, the both of 'em.'

Rayna laughed, a warm feeling spreading through her. She leaned her head back against the couch, revelling in how comfortable it was. 'Have you always kept livestock?'

'Sure have,' Jack nodded, 'that bull out there was a weddin' present from Alice's old man, started us off good. We grow some crops and the like too, kept us goin' over the years.'

'Got a couple o' horses out there,' Alice said, 'grazin' down by the river. Do you ride?'

'I do,' Rayna replied, looking out of the window in the direction Alice motioned. There was little of anything but _green_. It was beautiful.

'I'll take you down there Ray, you gotta meet Hank, we've had him since he was a foal. He's a beast though, surprised he didn't kill me when I was a weed of a kid.'

'You have a horse named Hank?'

'Yep,' Deacon grinned.

Rayna shook her head, swirling the tea leaves around her cup. 'Of course you do.'

#

Deacon was born in Jack's truck on the way to the hospital. He was impatient, Alice had said, eager to get out and start causing trouble, and that was exactly what he'd done. He wasn't a loud child, wasn't one to keep his parents awake at night, or to throw his food across the table. His brand of trouble was in what he didn't do, what he didn't say. He learned to talk earlier than most babies, but if he realised he had the power to use his voice to get what he wanted, he didn't use it, preferring instead to keep it to himself, to peer out from behind big eyes that took in everything and stored it all away for later. Alice knew he wasn't like his sister, who was a few years older than him and threw temper tantrums when she felt like she wasn't being paid enough attention, or when her father didn't come home, when her mother threw a dish at his feet and told him she hated him right before she pulled him to her with one hand and knocked the glasses from the sink with the other while she kissed him. Deacon didn't need attention, and they'd wished he would, that he wouldn't look at them like they were going to be sorry when he was old enough to understand that his parents were a mess.

There was a photograph of him on the mantelpiece, and Rayna picked it up, running her finger over his face. He was all dark hair and dark eyes, and even if she hadn't been in the house he'd grown up in, she would have been able to recognise him anywhere. He had the same stillness he had now, the look in his eyes that was so much older than he was. There was another picture beside it, him patting a cow that was a hundred feet taller than him and eyed him with the same trepidation he afforded it, and Rayna touched the glass, affection gripping her. For all his seriousness, Deacon had more ability to make her cry with laughter than anyone she'd ever met, an inclination to both find and cause mischief that she found thrilling.

'He was a cutie even back then,' Alice said, startling her, and she put the frame down, turning towards her and nodding. Alice considered her for a moment, brushed a strand of hair off her face. 'You're a beautiful little thing.' She smiled, and it was tinged with sadness. 'I hoped he'd never find you.'

'I'm sorry?' Rayna said, surprised.

'If there is a person out there for everyone, finding them is far from without cost. You and my son, you're already in far too deep to ever come back in one piece. Either of you.'

'I don't think I understand…'

Alice picked up a photograph of the four of them, a family. They looked happy, sitting out in one of the fields on a summer's day. 'I hope you never do, sweetheart,' she said softly, and left Rayna standing by the embers of a fire that still smouldered from all the nights before.

#

'So you're her guitar player,' Jack said, holding out the shears. Deacon nodded, knowing he was in for a talking to but trying to deflect it anyway. 'You got people gossipin' out there in that city, lot of 'em been sayin' you got the Johnny an' June goin' on.'

'You read the papers now Pops?'

'No, but your momma does. She comes from some fine stock, this girl. I've heard all about her daddy.' He raised his eyebrows at Deacon. 'You don't wanna be gettin' messed up with that kinda family.'

Deacon huffed. 'She's nothin' like him, I know you can see that even from meetin' her for a few hours.' He grappled with a stocky ewe before he set the shears on it, gritting his teeth. 'That's not it though, is it?'

Jack said nothing for a minute, tossed a tangle of wool into a pile behind him. 'No, it's not.'

'Then what? You've never taken much of an interest in my girlfriends before Pops,' he said, 'why you askin' now?'

'She's a pretty one son.' He shushed the animal he was trying to catch a hold of, and it trotted willingly over to him. The knack he had out there on the ranch never ceased to impress Deacon. 'She'll break your heart six ways from Sunday.'

'Savannah Mason was a pretty one too, so was Anna Mae and that girl from across the river, the blonde one. Didn't seem to bother you.'

'She's not like those girls.'

'No,' Deacon said, 'she sure isn't.'

'Son, Rayna Jaymes is fire to you. I ain't never seen you look at a girl anythin' like you look at her.'

'That's because no girl's ever made me feel half of what she does. Not even close.'

Jack turned away, biting his lip. 'You're lost, boy,' he sighed, resigned. 'There ain't no turnin' back from here. I know you know it too.'

Deacon said nothing more. The sheep between his knees kicked him in the shins as it bolted.

#

The walk down to the river was quiet, Deacon holding onto Rayna's hand, swinging it in his, lost in thought. The trees muffled any outside sounds, but even if they hadn't, there was little to be heard but the placid trickling of the water and the birds that circled above them. It was peaceful, miles away from anywhere, and Rayna could quite easily and quite happily forget anyone else in the world existed.

'My momma give you a grillin'? Deacon asked. She shook her head, plucking a flower from a tree and twirling it between her fingers.

'Not exactly. Your dad did though, huh.'

'Yeah.' He looked down at the ground, his agitation apparent, and she dipped her head to look up into his face.

'What did he say?'

Deacon sighed. 'Just warned me in no uncertain terms not to fall in love.' He met her gaze, and his breath caught a little in his throat, for no reason he could put his finger on other than she was looking at him so earnestly it made his chest ache. 'It is _far_ too late for that though, darlin'.'

Rayna smiled and tugged his hand, stilling him. He leaned into her, and she wound her arms around his neck, her fingers slipping into his hair. 'Is that why you were worried about coming here Deacon? You didn't want them to disapprove?'

'It's not you I knew they'd disapprove of baby,' he told her, 'it's this, in general.' He gestured between them, and she understood. She knew there was a hell of a lot she would probably never know about the home he came from, but she'd sensed instantly that there was a lot of love and a whole lot of regret lingering in the walls of that house.

'So let them disapprove,' she said, her voice gentle in its surety, 'this is only about you and me, whatever has come before or comes afterwards isn't for us to be worrying about.'

Deacon looked down at her and he knew in that moment that his father was right - she was fire to him, and damn it all to hell if it mattered because he could happily drown in her and never look back. When she soothed her palms down his cheeks he felt his whole body quiet, untangle, his focus on only her; funny kind of fire that could do that to him. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, telling her all the words he didn't need to speak, that he would give her anything in the world she wanted. It was lucky then that all she wanted was him.

#

The first time Jack left her she'd found a note on yellowed paper, the messy handwriting he used to write lyrics on napkins and admissions of love on the mirror in her lipstick. Their daughter was a year old, blonde and precocious, the most precious thing either of them had ever tried not to break. The note was tucked under his pillow, not hers, like it could make up for the absence of him, a paper substitute for a man who was far away from town and further still from her. _I can't love you and hate myself_, he'd said, and she'd burned the letter with the firewood that night. He'd come back three days later, sorry and solemn, and it always was his tears she could never resist. She was addicted to his tears, to their salty taste, to the way they blinded him so he couldn't look at her like she was all his pain spun into the cheap gold wedding band that branded him as hers. He never took that ring off, not when he was with other women, not when he was five towns away trying to drink her name off his lips, not when he was passed out in the bed of his truck while it rained into the empty bottles strewn around him. Alice craved his tears more than she craved his smile, more than his touch, because they were just for her. He might not reserve his affections for her, might not use his tongue to speak his wife's name alone, but she was the only woman who ever made him cry, and if it was all she could have of him, she would take it.

#

'Well if it ain't the prodigal Claybourne,' a man's voice said, two others chiming in from the end of the garden, slamming the doors of the rusty truck they'd jumped out of.

'Boys!' Deacon grinned, jumping up off the porch and meeting them halfway to the house, man-hugging the three of them at once. 'Hey Rayna!'

They were about Deacon's age, one of them slightly older maybe, all three in overalls and flannels, workman boots peeping out from under the frayed denim of the younger two, scuffed cowboy boots on the other.

'Ray, this is Jimmy, Ronnie, Bobby,' Deacon said, gesturing around at each of them in turn.

Rayna lifted a perfect eyebrow at him. 'Really?'

He nodded, laughing.

'We're Deac's cousins,' Jimmy, the older one, said, 'though not all of 'em, by a long shot.'

'Hi,' she smiled at them shyly, and they took off their hats in the same second and jostled to be the first to kiss her hand.

'You've to watch Ronnie sweetie,' Alice said, moving between them and slapping the arm of the tallest one who was gripping Rayna's fingers, 'he's got more tentacles than an octopus.'

_See_, said Deacon's face, and Rayna chuckled at him. 'Well it is a pleasure meetin' y'all,' she told the trio, and they were enthusiastic in their agreement.

'I thought you were a myth,' Bobby said, his sandy blond hair stuck to his head like he hadn't taken off his hat in years. 'Rayna Jaymes, knockin' about with our Deac!'

'I told you he was good at that guitar.'

'Not all he must be good at Jimmy, _look_ at her,' Ronnie said with a low whistle.

Jimmy whacked him in the other arm and tipped his hat at Rayna apologetically.

'I'm just sayin' Jim. I'm a half decent plucker too and ain't no girl like this ever so much as looked at me.'

It was falling dark outside, a balmy Southern night, and Alice produced a shawl she pulled around Rayna's shoulders to keep the chill out. It was made from fine wool, a gift from her husband for her birthday last year, she told her, tying it in a loose knot and looking at Rayna fondly. Beers and bonfires were the order of the evening, and Jack passed a seemingly endless stream of bottles from an old tin bath full of ice water in the outhouse beside the garden. They gathered around a low pit Deacon lit a fire in, warming hands wet with condensation from their bottles. Rayna sat down next to Deacon, leaning back against a heavy log, his arm around her shoulders. His cousins were apparently a musical bunch too; one of them disappeared to the truck, emerging with two guitars and a ukulele.

'How's the city treatin' you?' Bobby asked, pulling off a boot and holding his foot above the pit.

'It's good man, real good, playin' a lotta gigs round town.'

'I heard y'all played the Opry, that true?'

Deacon nodded, remembering the night he and Rayna had taken to the stage he'd dreamed of playing since he was a skinny kid with a string guitar and not so much as a nickel to his name. He still didn't have a nickel to his name, but a hell of a lot had changed since then. He looked down at Rayna, the light wind tossing her hair around her shoulders, and watched for a moment, entranced, before he smoothed it into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck with his fingers and kissed her temple.

Little fireflies sparked above them, and Rayna watched them play tag with each other, marvelling at how clear the sky was out in the country. She sighed, nestling further into Deacon, the warmth of him like a blanket; his musky smell was an addiction to her, and his fingers trailed up and down her arm, sending tingles through her whole body. She could have stayed out in that garden for the rest of her life, the twanging of strings, gentle laughter, Deacon's even breathing.

'Come on boy,' Jimmy said, holding out the guitar Deacon had left on the porch. 'I know you haven't forgotten how we do it around here.'

He hadn't forgotten. His father joined them, and Rayna watched as they counted each other in and spun a tune so fast and intricate she felt the elation spread through her limbs that only music could evoke. They whooped and tapped their feet in time, and she was unable to resist joining in, finding the melody easily. When they slowed, segueing into something so wholesome she wanted to wrap her hands around it and grasp it, she was surprised - the sounds they created were delicate, poetic. Of course this was where Deacon came from. She found herself holding soft notes along with them, lost in the music, until Jimmy stopped, looking over at her. He changed tack, playing the opening notes of her song, the one that had landed her at the top of the charts and that she knew would haunt her at every show she played for years to come. She laughed when they each joined in, singing along at the tops of their voices. They did a chorus, and she applauded when they were finished, Deacon's amused rumble echoing through her.

'Your turn,' Jimmy said quietly, 'show us what we've been missin' out here in the sticks.'

Rayna looked up at Deacon, and he smiled at her tenderly, strumming a few chords. She recognised the song immediately - it was one they'd written on a rare lazy Sunday morning, when they'd been tangled in his sheets feeding each other peanut butter with their fingers. She loved it, as had her record label, who, if they'd known how long the jar of Skippy had been in Deacon's cupboard and exactly where he'd smeared it when they were done with their last verse, would have been horrified.

'Those folks over in Nashville pay good money for this, we got ourselves a free show boys,' Bobby said, falling quiet when Rayna started to sing.

'_I don't want to talk right now, I just want your arms wrapped around me in this moment before it runs out_,' she breathed, and Deacon held her gaze when he answered her, his fingers moving effortlessly.

'_I can't pull you closer than this, it's just you and the moon on my skin_.'

It wasn't that they forgot anyone else was around them, more that they didn't care, and it was the same whether they were on a stage in front of what were becoming bigger and bigger audiences, or on a darkened ranch with a handful of family who were exchanging glances they missed entirely, that said _wow_ - cousin Ronnie - and _shit_ - Jack. It was instantly there for all to see, the connection between them, tangible almost.

'_Let's let the stars watch, let them stare, let the wind eavesdrop, I don't care. For all that we've got, don't let go, just hold_ _me_.'

Alice and Jack looked at each other, not a single word necessary. There was some kind of magic in the air between Rayna and Deacon, words tumbling from their mouths that mingled into the sweetest of melodies. So this was what people were talking about. Deacon had played music since he was a child, had written it since he was old enough to hold a pen, and he and his father had spent happy nights down at the Social entertaining crowds of locals for as long as either could remember. Their son was talented, unquestionably, they'd always known music was in his blood. What was happening before their eyes now was something else entirely.

#

Deacon was certain he would never get enough of the feel of Rayna's skin right behind her left earlobe. It was kitten-soft under his lips, warm, and when he grazed it with his teeth she whimpered, and he was certain he would never get enough of that either. His fifteen year old self would have volunteered six rounds of Hail Marys if he'd so much as entertained the notion that a girl as intoxicating as Rayna would one day be pinning him to his childhood bed with her knees and pressing white fingertip marks into his chest. He'd tiptoed down the hall when he'd known everyone would be asleep, surprised that his feet remembered so easily which were the creaky floorboards, all the trips to the lake with his friends having taught him how to creep around. He knew he'd find her waiting, and he was right; she was too hungry for him to think about sleep, and when she'd seen his silhouette in the doorway she'd pulled back the covers and he'd wedged a chair under the handle, wrapping himself up in her in the dark and pushing her T-shirt up, kissing her hotly. He'd taken his time with her, tasting her skin and swallowing her gasps, both of them as quiet as they could manage to be.

When morning came Deacon squinted at the light intruding through the curtains. He squeezed his eyes closed, relishing the warm Rayna in his arms, her slumbering breath in soft little puffs into his neck. He was distracted by the feel of her, his nerve endings stirring the more he woke and became aware of her knee tucked between his legs, her chest pressed into his. It took him a few moments to remember where they were, that he was supposed to be in the squeaky camp bed in the room at the other end of the hall. He squinted at the clock on his bedside table and groaned lightly.

'Mmph,' Rayna mumbled, rousing, and he brushed her hair back from her confused face.

'I'm sorry baby, I didn't mean to wake you. I gotta go, stay asleep - it's early.'

She protested until she woke enough to remember he definitely wasn't supposed to be in her bed, and when he left she pulled the covers tightly around herself, breathing in his scent.

#

'There you are!' Alice said cheerfully, pouring hot coffee into two mugs. Deacon rubbed his eyes and yawned so wide he thought he might have cracked his jaw. Rayna was already sat at the wooden table, as fresh as a daisy, and she gave him a secret smile as he sat down next to her.

'Thought you were never going to drag yourself out of bed,' she said, sliding one of the mugs towards him.

He hid his smirk, and she kicked him lightly under the table.

'Wow,' Rayna said, eyes widening at the giant stack of pancakes Alice set down on the table in front of them. 'That is quite a breakfast.'

'Y'all need to be fed,' she said, wiping her hands on her apron, 'you worked up quite an appetite last night.'

Deacon choked on a piece of pancake, washing it down hastily with a swig of his coffee. 'All that singin',' Alice continued, oblivious, 'somethin' beautiful that was, that's for sure. And the shearin' you did Deacon - it's only taken you comin' home to get your father into action.'

Jack kissed her on the cheek, pulling a chair out for her to sit down on and carrying a jug of maple syrup from the kitchen counter. 'If she starts tryin' to get you fixin' the loose gate down the paddock, don't you be listenin' - those hands are your livelihood now son. Seen that with my own eyes and ears last night.' He lifted his mug to them, a toast, it seemed.

'Well that gate does need fixin' before those creatures scarper without a second thought for you, Jack Claybourne.' She ignored his mumbling, glancing across the table. 'You eat up now Rayna, you're a teeny little wisp - you need some good home cooking is what you need.'

Deacon watched Rayna pour maple syrup onto her pancakes, happily lifting a forkful to her mouth.

'You too Deacon,' Alice added, looking at his fork hovering in mid air, forgotten, and smiling into her plate. And then she said the last thing he'd been expecting. 'I thought we'd go into town later.'


	3. Chapter 3

**In advance I'd like to say I'm sorry for the cow milking thing. I can only claim this hiatus is driving me insane. Thank you for your very kind reviews, I hope none of you have udder-related nightmares and have to take back every word.**

**For Danila - tit for tat and all that ;) A distraction present x**

Rayna had seen Deacon do a lot of things with his hands. Some things involved making beautiful music that made people - including her - cry, made them dance, made them go home and tell someone they loved them. Some things involved making her gasp out his name and pull on his hair, arch her back into him while he made her sweaty and light headed.

One thing she had never seen him do with his hands was pump milk from a cow's udder in the middle of a field.

'This turnin' you on Ray?' he said, sitting on a three-legged stool under the huge animal and throwing her an exaggerated wink.

'I didn't know you could get that much milk from one cow. It's gonna be dehydrated after you're done there.'

'Well, I am done, and she's still standin'.' He gave it a pat on the flank, shifting the bucket and moving behind Rayna to wrap his arms around her. 'And I'm feelin' more than a little turned on right now.'

'Deacon,' she laughed, pushing his hands down before they could move any higher, 'not in front of the cows!'

'Ray, they're more interested in sniffin' each other's butts than watchin' me feel you up.'

'I can see them looking.'

'They have needs too...' He kissed the crook of her neck, slipping a hand in the front of her shirt, and she let out a squeak.

'You're getting milk on me! And we are not having sex in a field full of cows.'

'Mmm, I know you wore that little jean skirt out here to drive me crazy. Who'd have thought you'd look so damn sexy in gumboots?' He felt her resolve slipping the more he worked his hands over her, her body melting into his. And then a loud _moo_ rang across the field and she tensed in his arms.

'Oh Ronnie,' she moaned, and he snapped his hand back.

'Oh hell no,' he laughed loudly, 'hell no.' She chuckled, picking up the pail of milk to take it back to the house.

'Come here baby,' he said, beckoning her over to him instead. 'I'm gonna teach you how we cream our coffee around here.'

'If that's a euphemism Deacon…'

He held his hands up, grinning. 'It's not, I swear.'

He led one of the cows towards a post and tied it up, and when he lowered himself onto the stool and patted his knee, she warily perched on it.

'Straddle me,' he said, earning himself a Look. 'No really, put your legs either side of mine. You're gonna need your balance.' She did as he said, facing away from him, and he took her hands in his.

'This is really romantic,' she quipped, his breath in her ear making her squirm.

'You gotta squeeze like this.' He closed her fingers around two of the teats. 'You pull from the base, keep your hand curled around…that's it.'

Milk spurted from the udder and Rayna let out a triumphant 'Ah!', jumping a little. 'I'm milkin' a cow!'

'You sure are baby,' Deacon said, watching her purse her lips in concentration, sleeves rolled up, a rogue piece of straw in her hair. He thought she'd never looked more beautiful. She turned her head to give him an excited smile, and he felt a red hot thud in his belly. He knew he'd fallen in love with her a long time ago, but he'd only been free to say it out loud for a few months, and he was still drunk on the way it tasted in his mouth when he did. He didn't think the craving would ever lessen, for her, for the love of her.

'Okay,' she said, 'now this is turnin' me on…in a really weird kind of way.'

#

Alice and Jack rarely left the ranch. They grew their own vegetables, bred chickens that made a fine Sunday roast and got enough milk from their herd of cows they could have taken baths in it. If there was anything else they needed that they couldn't get from Bill's, Jimmy would pick it up for them from town like the good dependable nephew he was. Town spelled temptation to Jack, distraction from his demons, and he tried his best to stay away, but that didn't mean he could look them in the face any more than he could himself. On his good days all he wanted was Alice - he could quite happily have forfeited ever seeing another soul but her and their children. Sometimes Jack wished they could go back to the days when Sarah and Deacon were young, when things were simple, and then he remembered - that was never really true.

'There's one of those little coffee shops opened up,' Alice said, slamming her foot down hard on the gas, 'just like those fancy places they have up in the city - y'all might like it in there. They make coffee from a _machine_, goes all funny an' white on the top.'

Deacon had forgotten how erratically his mother drove - he glanced at Rayna, who had her own thirst for speed whenever she was behind a wheel, and for applying lipstick in her rear view mirror without a second thought for slowing down. She looked completely unperturbed. Deacon dug his fingers into his seat and offered a grumble in response.

'Now I promised your father we'd have a look in the market an' see if they have any of those cigars he loves. You're leavin' us at the weekend and he's gonna need a little pick me up.' Her knuckles were white on the steering wheel. 'Are y'all sure you can't stay just a little longer?'

'Eyes on the road momma, eyes on the road,' Deacon yelped, and she manoeuvred them out of the path of the oncoming truck, shooting Rayna a look that plainly said _men_. Rayna silently answered _backseat drivers_ and popped her gum.

The little town was made up of winding streets peppered with stone buildings, store fronts with signs declaring they sold homemade wine, freshly picked fruit, all manner of animal feeds and the kind of butcher's meat that looked like it was still running around a field.

'That's the square over there,' Alice informed Rayna, pointing towards a cobbled clearing, bunting strung around its edges. 'Deacon and his poppa used to play up on that there stage at the summer festival. Prettiest sound I ever heard.' She turned to them with a look on her face somewhere between mournful and full of hope. 'Until a couple o' days ago, anyway.'

'We won a lamb once,' Deacon said, unable to stop a hint of pride creeping into his smile. 'Plastic trophy round its neck and everythin'.' Not for the first time that week, Rayna felt a tug on her heart. Every little thing she was learning about him was endearing him to her all the more, details that built up a picture of how he'd become this person she couldn't stop longing for, even when he was right there next to her holding her hand.

'Your poppa still has that trophy, he keeps it in a box with that tuft of hair you ripped out when you got stuck climbin' that tree down by the lake.'

They browsed the stalls dotted around the square, Alice telling stories as memories came to her. Deacon, it transpired, had gotten himself into a fair amount of trouble with most of the people who waved hellos at them, and Rayna was starting to think she would never get enough amusement from his sheepish-face when Alice stopped abruptly outside a glass-fronted store that smelled strongly of leather.

'I must go in and say hi to Poppy Miller,' she declared, her dress rustling as she pushed open the door. Rayna made to follow her, but Deacon tugged her back, his hands around her waist.

'What are you doing?' she asked, and he gave her a cheeky grin and steered her around the side of the building. Before she could say anything his lips were on hers, and she felt the heat rush through her in an instant. They couldn't keep their hands off each other for the entirety of a two-hour show, so this be-on-your-best-behaviour thing was proving far from easy.

'I've missed kissing you,' Deacon murmured against her lips, one hand in her hair, and she laughed softly, pulling him closer.

'So shut up and kiss me now, why don't you?'

He did as told, commendably so, and he was just easing his tongue into her mouth and trying really hard not to lift her up and get the pesky skirt she was wearing out of his way, when he heard his name being called from the other side of the street.

'Well sweet baby Jesus, if that ain't Deacon Claybourne I see!'

No one but Rayna heard the grunt of frustration he let out before he grudgingly pulled away from her, and she hid her blush in his neck as the old woman in the headscarf and house coat scuttled over to them.

'As I live and breathe!' she said, and Deacon extracted the fingers that seemed to have fused themselves into Rayna's hip.

'Hi Mrs Carter,' he said in his most charming-young-man voice, accepting the bone-crushing embrace she wrapped him up in. 'How are you?'

He turned to introduce Rayna but there was no need. 'Oh _my_.' The woman clutched her scarf in one gnarled hand and reached across Deacon with the other, chivvying him out of the way to pinch one of Rayna's cheeks.

'I don't need to ask you Deacon Claybourne if those rumours are true, now I've seen quite enough for myself.' She lifted thick grey eyebrows, motioning conspiratorially towards Rayna who was trying not to laugh and not to rub her cheek, and Deacon cleared his throat.

'I guess so ma'am.'

'Well, I never. We don't get many famous folk round these parts! This boy here's always had the ladies after him though, always been a looker, just like his daddy! Don't you go gettin' this sweet girl into trouble now, you hear me Deacon Claybourne?' And she waddled off down the street, considerably faster than someone with a cane should be able to.

'She seems nice,' Rayna said, brushing past Deacon with a smirk and opening the door into the store, just as Alice came hurtling through it.

'Momma?'

Her face was drained of colour, her eyes fixed straight ahead. She dropped the bags she was carrying, lifting her shaking hands and staring at them. And then she disappeared around the corner without a word. Deacon took a step after her and froze - the woman who opened the door and hurried out behind Alice almost collided with him, her face dropping with shock when she saw who he was.

'I-I'm sorry,' she stammered, dipping her head and rushing away with hunched shoulders.

'Deacon, who was that?' Rayna asked in concern.

'She used to live on the next ranch,' he said faintly, staring in the direction both women had gone. 'My pops spent a weekend with her in some motel a few years back. She turned up on our doorstep afterwards and said she was in love with him, said she'd left her husband for him.' He bent to pick up the bags as Rayna stood and listened, not quite sure what to do. 'I remember how he looked at her, like he had no idea why she would give a shit about him at all. He didn't even let her down gently - told her he loved my momma like it was the most obvious thing in the world, why would she ever think he'd leave her?' He looked down at his feet, shuffling on them. 'Anyway her husband got in a fight with my pops, beat the crap outta him. He didn't even fight back. Was almost like he wanted him to do it.' He grasped Rayna's hand, just a little too tightly, easing her away from the square. 'That was the weekend I packed my bags and moved to Nashville. He doesn't even know the damage he causes. Neither of them do.'

Rayna rubbed her fingers over his and stilled him, reaching for the shopping. 'Go after your momma Deacon.' He hesitated, looking younger, vulnerable, and she tightened her grip on the handles. 'Go on, I'll take these to the car. I'm right here.'

#

Jack watched them sitting on the old swing out by the oak tree in the moonlight, Deacon with his guitar in his hands, coaxing chords from it without ever taking his eyes from Rayna. They'd been quiet, the three of them, when they'd returned from their drive into town. Alice had gone straight into the house and started stripping the curtains from all the rooms, boiling them up in the washroom and hanging them out to dry silently. Deacon had been downcast, that look he got when there were things he didn't want to talk about that made him chew the inside of his cheek and retreat into his music. He did the same thing now that he did when he was a kid - picked up his guitar, strummed randomly until something came together and then focused intently on it until it was a piece of music.

Rayna hadn't left his side, had told Jack about the market that was selling cherry sponge cakes like her momma used to bake, but she hadn't said much else, and she had a protective air around her, something in the way she looked at Deacon to reassure him she was there. Jack could see how she calmed his son, how her presence gave him something to anchor himself to. They sang like it was a secret, heads close together, knees touching. He felt his throat close up as he watched and he wasn't sure if it was from the haunting music they made or from the way he saw in them all of the innocence he and Alice had tainted so terribly. His love for his wife had killed itself, had burned so brightly it could do nothing but leave scars and cinders in the place there used to be flames, used to be warmth. And yet he felt it still every time he looked at her, every time she breezed by him on her way from the shower, the smell of her hair turning his head like it always did. Love was too much and not enough.

Rayna laughed gently, the sound carrying on the night air, her fingers brushing Deacon's jaw. His expression bled with his love for the girl, and Jack wished with everything he had that for his son's sake, and for hers too, her laughter still sounded so sweet when it turned to tears.

#

When Deacon was thirteen he worked a paper route all summer on top of his chores at the ranch to save for new strings for his guitar. He'd spent an hour in Watson's music store in town pouring over all the beautiful instruments hanging on the walls, picking out in his mind the one he would buy when he was old enough to get some paying gigs. Mr Watson, the store owner, knew the Claybourne kid - he came in every couple of weeks and wandered around in awe, like most other kids his age did in a candy store. He thought Deacon was decent enough, but his daughter had had a run in with his sister Sarah over a boy - what else - and so he wasn't inclined to favour any of the Claybournes much.

When he'd discovered later that day that one of the leather guitar straps he'd just ordered in was missing, he'd called up Deacon's parents right away. Deacon had known they'd believe him if he told them the truth, that he'd been nowhere near the straps and he sure as hell hadn't stolen one, but he'd known Mr Watson never would. He'd had to return the strings and spent the rest of the school break giving his hard-earned money to the man to pay the difference, never bothering to try and defend himself. It was easier to let him think what he wanted, to let everyone think what they wanted.

That year he'd scored his first solo gig, and they'd paid him ten dollars and as much free soda as he wanted. He'd drunk so much of it he'd felt sick the rest of the night, but Mr Watson had been in the crowd, and he'd come up to Deacon after his set.

'You did good son,' he'd told him, genuinely impressed. And then he'd held out a package - inside it were his strings and a brand new leather guitar strap. 'To replace this one,' he'd said, plucking at the frayed old thing around Deacon's neck. 'You've paid for these, after all.' Then he'd nodded his head at him and walked right out the door.

#

'I used to jack the neighbour's boat when I was a kid,' Deacon confessed with a crinkle of his eyes, cradling a cup of coffee in his hands. He'd wolfed down his breakfast so quickly Rayna had thought he might choke, and just when he seemed like he was done, he'd loaded his plate and started all over again.

'Did you ever get caught?' she asked, squinting up at the early morning sun and trying not to think about the juicy bacon she'd loaded between bread that was still warm from the oven.

He scoffed, waving a hand in the air. 'Hell no. Haven't been out on that lake in a long time.'

Deacon had known Rayna for two years, had seen her in a lot of situations that had challenged both of them, could recognise her facial expressions in the instant before they fully appeared on her face. He should have known, then, that when Rayna got quiet, it meant she was plotting something. She was biting her lip when he looked up at her cautiously. 'Ray…'

She was out of the garden gate before he could put his cup down.

Mr Klein lived three fields away - one the Claybournes', two his. Deacon had never figured Rayna to be the kind of girl who would climb a stile with as much ease as she climbed out of a car, but she hopped over all three of them without so much as splashing mud on her boots, waiting impatiently for him on the other side. The lake was at the edge of the third field, Mr Klein's house between the two, his boat tied to a jetty half hidden by overgrown reeds.

'Duck under the windows,' Deacon said, and Rayna did as told, creeping on light feet past the house and down the bank. She untied the rusting boat with a quick hand, and he watched her in surprise, shaking his head. When she gave it a shove and jumped in as it floated away, he stood stock still on the jetty, dumbfounded.

'Ray! You know how to drive a powerboat?'

'No,' she replied, sitting back against the side and crossing her legs. 'But you do.'

He scrambled after her; the boat was too far away to jump, and he soaked the legs of his jeans wading through the water. Rayna held out a hand to help him in and he took it, laughing as he caught his breath.

They reached the middle of the lake quickly, and silence rang in their ears as Deacon cut the engine.

'It's beautiful out here,' Rayna mused, trailing her fingertips in the water.

'Sure is.' She crawled over to him, lifting a leg over his waist and propping herself up on her knees, lowering her head to kiss him. He gripped the backs of her thighs and pulled her closer, suddenly beyond pleased she had such good ideas.

'How deep is that water?' she asked, pulling back and peering over the side.

'Pretty deep Ray. If you feel like takin' a dip I got a better suggestion.'

A slow grin crossed her face, and she leaned back, sitting on his thighs. 'Two birds,' she said, and stripped her dress over her head in one swift movement. It fell to the deck and she tossed her underwear on top of it, taking in Deacon's open mouth as he watched.

'You're gonna catch flies lookin' at me like that,' she purred, and then she was gone, headfirst in a smooth dive straight into the water.

'Rayna!' he yelled over the side, scanning the surface. When she didn't re-appear he stood up, the boat wobbling under his weight, panic gripping him. 'Rayna?'

She popped up on the other side, laughing freely and pushing her hair back from her face.

'Jesus Ray,' Deacon huffed, sinking to his knees on the little bench.

'What, you thought I'd been eaten by a minnow?'

'There could be alligators in there for all you know.'

She licked her lips. 'I think I do see a few snakes. You comin' in or you just gonna do a little fishin'?' She grasped the edge of the boat and pulled herself out of the water just enough so he could see what he was missing, and it took him about three seconds to shed his clothing and jump in next to her.

She really did have such good ideas, he thought again as her legs wrapped around his waist.

#

The smells coming from the house made Rayna and Deacon both quicken their step, the open front door enticing them in. They were still a little damp from their swim, and suddenly ravenous.

'What in the Lord's good name happened to y'all two?' Alice shrieked, wiping her hands on a dishcloth and tossing it over her shoulder, hurrying around the kitchen counter towards them. 'You're gonna catch your death, shiverin' like this.'

'We went paddlin',' Deacon said, trying not to think about the fact that Rayna's underwear was somewhere at the bottom of the lake thanks to their boat-shaking getting a little too vigorous. Lucky fisherman who would reel those in one day. A draft blew in from the door and she gave a little shudder, and Deacon sucked his lip into his mouth.

'Deacon Claybourne if you lifted that damn boat again there will be trouble.'

Jack chuckled to himself, putting down a tub of flour and giving his son a wink. 'How d'you fall in?'

'We didn't…exactly,' Deacon said, and the snigger that came from them both was exactly the same. Rayna looked from one to the other, recognising the mischievous look on Jack's face as well as she knew the one on Deacon's.

'Showin' Rayna the sights,' Jack said, 'the gentlemanly thing to do.'

'Y'all are rascals, the pair of you,' Alice told them with a shake of her head, but her lips curved into a smile she directed into the bowl she plucked off the counter and carried on stirring.

'I seem to recall you an' I doin' a little skinny dippin' down in that lake,' Jack said, and she threw her dishcloth at him, getting him right in the nose.

'You an' I did no such thing, and you'll be needin' to visit that confessional box this Sunday you say one more word.'

'Hey Deac, Old Man Klein still got that donkey tied up in his front yard? Remember that time we took it down the Social in that Easter bonnet your momma made for Sarah?'

'Course I remember - it took a dump in Ronnie's drink. You don't forget the look on a guy's face when he takes a swig of that.'

'You took your neighbour's donkey to a bar?' Rayna asked, sitting on the back of the couch and tucking a leg under her.

'We did no such thing,' Jack said, 'the Social don't serve decent enough beer to be called a bar.'

'Mr Klein only started lockin' his front door at night on account o' these two delinquents,' Alice told her, rolling her eyes.

'An' here I was thinkin' neighbours were supposed to share. Hey doll…how long 'til that meatloaf's done cookin'?

'Jack, If I find a single donkey droppin' on my porch I will have you both carted down the station.'

##

Rayna leaned back on the couch, her stomach heavy with the best meatloaf she'd ever tasted. Her own mother was never much of a cook, and Tandy tried her best after she died, but culinary skills didn't exactly run in the family. Alice, on the other hand, would be horrified at the amount of granola bars Rayna ate instead of dinner when she was on the road, and probably the amount of burgers Deacon put away in greasy diners.

'Your sister called,' Alice announced, long legs draped over the opposite couch. Jack lifted them and laid them across his lap, rubbing her feet. 'She's in Spain, staying with some boy she met out in Nashville.'

Deacon frowned. 'She comin' back?'

'To the city? I think so, but you know what your sister's like.'

'Least he ain't Canadian this time,' Jack said.

'Least he ain't a girl this time,' Alice added, shifting uncomfortably. That had been a time they'd both been glad Sarah's phases were short-lived.

'She's comin' to the first night of our tour,' Rayna told Deacon, 'she said so when I saw her a couple of weeks ago.'

Jack cleared his throat. 'About that,' he said, glancing at his wife. 'Your momma and I were thinkin' maybe we'd like to come see your show too.'

'You would?' Deacon asked, too quickly to mask the hope in his voice. His parents had never been to Nashville, much less been to see him and Rayna play, and he'd never pushed it with them but he'd always wished someday they'd make the trip.

'We would son, yeah.' Jack got up from the couch, coughing gruffly and pouring water into the sink to wash the dishes from dinner, and Rayna nudged Deacon, nodding towards him.

'Go help him,' she whispered, loving the look on his face that she was sure was the same one he'd worn when he'd won those singing contests at the summer festival. She watched him walk hesitantly towards his father, accept the tea towel he gave him and go about putting the glasses back in the cupboards.

'Would that be okay for us to do?' Alice asked, moving to sit down next to Rayna, who nodded happily.

'Deacon would love that, and so would I.'

It surprised her that Alice appeared relieved, that she blushed slightly when she looked down at her lap. She tried to say something, but it got caught in her throat and she laughed nervously instead. Rayna wanted to reach out and hug her, but she wasn't sure she should.

'That's a beautiful bracelet,' she said instead, trying to lighten the mood.

'Thank you,' Alice replied, toying with the wooden links. 'Jack made it for me. He kept sneaking off to the outhouses and I didn't know what in heaven he might be up to. Then one day when I was pluckin' the rose bushes out back he came out and told me he had a surprise for me. Had this behind his back.' She ran a finger over it, and Rayna noticed how beautiful her hands were, slender and graceful. 'Said he carved his soul into this wood, that he wanted to give it to me so I could hold it in my hands.' She looked up, shy, and squeezed Rayna's hand briefly, whispering, 'I'm glad you're here.'

#

There had been a week Alice had refused to hold her daughter. Sarah was a baby, a needy one - she cried through the night and refused to eat when she didn't feel like it, and brandished a killer smile that excused her from all of it. Alice had never planned to go to college, but she hadn't planned on being covered every day in baby sick that smelled of sour milk she could never quite wash from her hair either. Plans meant nothing, Jack would tell her, because plans were no more than words, and words were only breaths with an echo. 'She looks like you,' he said one night when the baby had, for no reason at all, screamed so hard her cheeks had turned blue, and stopped just as suddenly. As the silence had fallen over both of them, Alice had wondered if she might feel relief, but instead there was venom, bubbling and boiling. Sarah had looked up at them with big blue eyes that warned them not to trust her respite, and Alice had snapped.

'This is all your fault,' she'd told Jack coldly, and she wasn't even sure why she said it but she'd felt some satisfaction in the look of anguish that had crossed his face.

The rest of that week when the baby had cried, Alice had lain in bed and looked up at the ceiling, making pictures in the grains of wood. She'd taken her plate and sat outside at meal times, ignoring Jack's pleas, and when he'd tried to hand their daughter to her when she'd wanted to play, Alice had merely stood and left. She walked through the fields, she walked through the river in bare feet and let the rocks cut her feet until they bled and streaked the water red, she walked away.

Sarah had grown despondent, upset by her mother's rejection, her cries no longer a taunt, but the boy who cried wolf was eaten in the end, Alice told herself. She told her husband too, told him she wasn't his, didn't belong to him, even though she knew she spoke a lie. She didn't know which of them she wanted to punish more, or whether maybe it was herself she was trying to fool into believing she was anything other than Jack Claybourne's for as long as she lived, but she revelled in the feeling, in how much it hurt. Plans may have meant nothing but pain did. 'Til death do us part,' they'd said, an echo from one to the other.

#

The bar on the other side of the hill spilled light across the parking lot. It smelled like cigarettes and regret, and its low roof made it feel smaller than it was, round tables scattered here and there, people sat at them in varying shades of denim.

'Be still my womb, if it ain't Deacon back in town,' the blonde propped on a stool by the bar drawled, crossing her endless legs and lifting a glass in his direction. The two girls she was talking to twisted around to see for themselves, and Deacon smiled awkwardly.

'Long time no see,' he said, holding onto Rayna's hand for dear life.

'Well it wouldn't have been so damn long if you'd ever bothered to call me,' Leggy said, pouting. 'But y'all had other business than carin' about my poor little broken heart, I see.'

'So Bill Perry _wasn't_ shittin' me,' one of the others gushed, fluttering her eyelashes at him just a little too obviously for Rayna's liking.

'We heard about it, course,' the girl behind the bar chimed in, leaning over the counter all cleavage and dirty blonde curls. 'Didn't any of us wanna believe you were off the market. We got unfinished business you an' me, Claybourne.' Her eyes flicked over to Rayna. 'Hi sugar,' she said, 'I'm Kelly. I was Deacon's first love. Not his last though, by the looks o' things.'

The other girls cackled, and Deacon looked at Rayna with eyes that pleaded for her to help him out. She didn't - his discomfort was far too entertaining.

'Now who's for a drink?' Kelly said, slamming a handful of shot glasses down. 'This is a bar, ain't it?'

They'd polished off the first bottle of Jack in twenty minutes, Deacon's cousins who'd shown up before he and Rayna had sat down, and the harem of chattering girls Rayna was thinking of more fondly with every drop she drank. No one bothered much with glasses in this town, she'd noticed quickly - they just passed the bottle around, sloshing more over the neck the blearier they got.

'See what I think is y'all should just stay,' Bobby told Rayna, sticking a finger in the air like he was having a Eureka moment. 'We like havin' you here.'

'I don't think we'd get much in the way of singin' done Bob,' Deacon said, lifting a fresh bottle to his mouth. Rayna watched the way his lips closed around it, how his tongue flicked out to catch the residue. He caught her staring and grinned, his hand gliding over her bare leg under the table.

'You can sing to us anytime you like sugar,' Leggy told him, fluffing up her hair.

Kelly snorted. 'I don't think it's any of us Deacon's wantin' to be singin' to hon. And who can blame him - this girl is a darlin'.' She leaned towards Rayna, lowering her voice. 'You know every girl in this town is wishin' he'd look at them the way he's been lookin' at you all night.'

'Not every girl,' Ronnie complained. 'I'm pretty sure Annie Adams has been givin' me the eye since she had that third Slammer.'

'Annie Adams went out with your Jimmy for the better part o' high school. Don't you go dippin' where your brother's been swimmin', Ronnie Claybourne.'

Deacon laughed, tipping his head back and taking another swig, and Rayna was just drunk enough not to care where they were. Instead of letting him lick his own lips she pulled him to her by the scruff of his shirt, slowing when his face was level with hers. He breathed heavily as he looked down at her, and the smile that curled the corners of her mouth was almost feline. She closed the distance between them and lapped with her tongue, tasting whiskey and something that was pure Deacon that made her toes curl. He was delicious; she felt her head spin, and ignoring the catcalls from Ronnie, she let go of him abruptly and got to her feet.

Deacon had almost drooled on himself earlier that night when he'd seen the short shorts she was wearing, when he'd realised that under the right light her shirt would be completely sheer. In his parents' house she'd looked perfectly respectable, but she'd popped a couple of buttons on the walk over and he'd never been more grateful for fluorescent strip bulbs.

'I think we need this music turnin' up a notch,' Rayna said, 'I feel like' dancin'.'

Kelly hopped behind the bar and cranked the volume, joining Rayna where the tables were cleared enough to leave a little space for two-stepping and brawling, depending on how late in the night it was.

'She is gonna be the death of you,' Jimmy said, leaning back in his chair, his eyes on the two girls.

'Yeah,' Deacon agreed, transfixed. 'No better way to go though.'

'I bet. Those are quite the pair of legs she's sportin', for starters. Got some…assets up front there too.'

'Shut up Jimmy.'

'No wonder you're never comin' back from that city. Must be like Christmas every day for you, boy.'

The song changed, a dark, dirty rhythm flooding the air, and Rayna closed her eyes, losing herself in it. It was a hot night, and the cotton of her shirt clung to her, the alcohol and the burning in her blood making her feel loose, reckless. She draped her arms around Kelly's neck, felt smooth legs winding with her own and fingers inching a little under her shirt, and she let out a low laugh. Kelly's breath spilled over the skin of her neck, breath that smelled like woman and beer. She didn't need to look back at the table - she could feel Deacon's eyes on her, boring holes in all the right places. The beat of the music rippled through her chest, louder and louder, pulsating and twisting up through her veins. Kelly tangled a hand in her hair, and the instant Rayna felt lips on her collarbone, rough hands grasped her shoulders and pushed her backwards. Deacon used his hips to drive her into the window, and she felt her heated skin sizzle against the cold glass. Leaning her head back, she looked up at him through hooded eyes.

'Ray,' he growled in her ear, his lips heading determinedly for hers. She pulled back with a little 'Uh uh', teasing him, and he thought he might lose it.

'I want you so damn bad,' he hissed, and she reached up to him, hovering her open mouth over his, a hand on his chest to hold him back.

'Mmm,' she hummed, her tongue flicking into his mouth just long enough to almost kill him. She dug her nails into his chest and pushed him away from her, her body lingering just close enough to brush lightly against him while she writhed to the music. She sang along into his ear, and his eyes roamed over the hair she tossed out of her face, the inviting sheen of sweat between her cleavage. When he reached for her again she shook her head playfully and slipped out of his grasp, looking at him over her shoulder while she headed for the little group. They'd abandoned their drinks in favour of dancing, Ronnie and Bobby fighting it out for who looked most uncle-at-a-wedding, and Kelly took Rayna by the hand and pulled her into their midst.

'Your girlfriend is _hot_,' she said when Deacon joined them, and his throat was so dry he couldn't answer. 'Good luck with that.'

He plucked the bottle from the table and pulled on it while he watched Rayna grind her hips, never taking her eyes from him.

##

They would have jumped each other's bones in one of the fields flanking the narrow lane back to the ranch if Deacon's flock of cousins hadn't insisted on joining them. 'I'll take your campbed Deac,' Ronnie had said, 'it'll give you an excuse to bunk in with Rayna. Or you know, I don't mind keepin' her company.'

They made it almost all the way back before Deacon yanked on her hand, the others walking ahead obliviously while he pushed her into the hedge and kissed her so hard her knees almost gave way. After that it was all they could do not to run the rest of the way home.

'You go on in,' Deacon told the boys when they were almost at the front door. 'I'm gonna give Ray a little tour of the outhouses.'

'Word 'round town is it's not so little,' Bobby snickered, but neither of them heard him, or the wolf whistles from the other two. Deacon led Rayna quickly around the side of the house and into the courtyard, not bothering to wait until the others were out of sight before they pounced on each other.

'In here,' he gasped, backing them into the old barn the horses used in the winter. It was empty other than haphazardly stacked bales of straw, and they tumbled onto the nearest one, Rayna pulling his shirt out of his pants before they hit it. He rolled her onto her back and kissed her feverishly, and she would have struggled to say what her own name was but his fell freely from her lips, along with a lot of words that would have got her kicked out of church for blasphemy. They stayed cocooned in the straw, Deacon's shirt over both of them as something of a makeshift blanket, until the sun came up and filtered through the rafters.

#

Deacon was sat in one of the chairs on the porch with his legs stretched out when Rayna found him. He was staring at the electric storm in the distance, jagged forks lighting up the black sky, and she walked up to him carefully, the way you might if you were trying not to scare away a robin.

'Hey,' she said quietly, tipping her head to one side and feeling her hair tickle her arm. 'What are you doin' out here in the rain?'

When he turned to look at her she saw, in the second before it disappeared, the remnants of the dark look he'd had on his face. 'Just thinkin'.'

She fought the urge to sit on his lap and pulled herself up onto the banister instead, leaning against the wooden column and letting cold drops of rain slide under her collar and down her spine. 'Penny for 'em?'

'This isn't what you're used to, huh,' he said. 'This, where I come from. What I am.'

'What you are,' she echoed, and let out a soft huff. 'Deacon, what you are is nothing like anyone I've ever met before. You make me feel like I'm…' she shrugged. 'Like I'm worth somethin'. Like I am somethin'. And you know, whatever you come from, doesn't mean that's what you are.' She met his eyes, and he knew what she meant - she wasn't the product of her family either. There were things they both needed to let go of.

'Your father is never gonna approve of me.'

'Well he's never gonna approve of me either, so that makes two of us.' She started to give him a wry smile, but it died on her lips before it could become anything more than a shadow. 'The real reason my daddy thinks you're bad for me has nothing to do with where either of us come from Deacon, that's just the easy way for him to package it up. Somethin' your mother said last night made me realise why. What he really disapproves of is that you'll never put a white picket fence up around me and buy me aprons for my birthday. You have soul, and my daddy knows better than anyone that soul is what's really dangerous. My momma taught him all he could ever need to know about that.'

Deacon nodded, digesting her words. 'Nobody's ever loved me before like you do Ray. I used to look at you and wish like hell you were mine. I didn't think you ever really would be.'

She jumped down and moved towards him, sitting on his knee and stroking the sides of his face with a tender smile. 'I am yours.'

He lost himself in her for a moment, his face full of surprise and adoration, until the clouds came back.

'My pops sold all our sheep one year, without my momma knowin',' he said, stroking her arm absentmindedly. 'He got up real early one mornin' and just took 'em, all of 'em. Sold every last one of 'em to the slaughterhouse. My momma lost it when she saw what he'd done - those sheep were for wool, not for meat. They hardly brought in a penny at slaughter.' Rayna waited, watching him sink further away from her as he played the memory back in his mind. 'He didn't come home for two days. He was still wasted, hadn't even bothered to wash the lipstick marks off his face. My sister took me to my room when the argument started, sang to me and got me playin' on my guitar so I wouldn't hear 'em, but I did. When my momma asked him why he'd done it, he said he'd wanted the money to buy her a ring, seein' as she'd never had one before they'd gotten married.' He ran a hand over his chin, no humour at all in his laugh. 'She still wears that ring. He spent half the money on bourbon so it was a shitty thing he had enough left to buy, but she put it on once she'd finished screamin' at him, and then she cried the whole night. He loves her the best he can. He's just not too good at lovin' himself.'

'Are you worried you're like him?'

'No,' he said, shaking his head with conviction and looking her in the eye, 'I'm not like him Ray. I just don't wanna fail you like him and my momma have failed each other. I wanna do right by you.'

'We're not your parents, Deacon. The mistakes we make will be all our own.'

He looked at her for a long moment, and it troubled her that she couldn't read his face. Thunder rumbled closer and Rayna shivered. He rose to his feet and took a couple of steps towards the edge of the porch, the rain drenching him quickly, flattening his hair to his face. He held out his hand. 'Let's get outta here Ray.'

Rayna looked up at the black clouds, the sheets of rain coming down almost horizontally across the sky. And then she took his hand and ran down the steps with him to his truck, no need to ask him where they were going. It didn't matter.


End file.
